PHP Connection to a database
Written by admin on December 25th, 2007 in PHP Tutorials.
PHP and MySQL there has to be a connection somewhere to use them both. But how do you make a connection?
Below will show you.
First…
You should never store any of your connection information anywhere other than in a PHP
document.
Now lets get started.
Create a php file called config.php and place it in the same directory as your index page.
Open config.php and insert the following code:
<?php
$connection = mysql_connect(“localhost”, “db_username”, “db_password”);
$db = mysql_select_db(“db_name”, $connection);
?> Lets run through that code.
Firstly we want to store our connection into a variable .
So we give it a variable name of connection.
This connection variable then holds the function of mysql_connect which connects to a db
using the host username and password that is provided.
To change the host, username, and password simply change the data in quotes.
A DB host is usually localhost unless you specify it in your Control panel for your databases.
Now we have another variable “db”. How would mysql_connect know what it was
reading from if it has no db?
So here we are using the function “mysql_select_db” which simply selects the db that we say.
Again you can change the db name in the quotes.
Once you’ve given all your info that’s it you should have a successful connection.
But what if you don’t?
Well you can either add this error handling to the mysql_connect function or use if statements.
To use the mysql_connect function for this you simply need to add the following die onto the
end of your mysql_connect function…
First loose the ;
or die(“Connection could not be made.”);
If a connection cannot be made the statement in quotes will be shown.
That’s how to connect to a DB with PHP.
Now all you have to do is include config.php into the file that needs a db connection.